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Opening comments: More at the end. This is from a political party's newsletter so it does have that slant to it but none-the-less it is a story of one more skeleton in Hazel McCallion's closet that the media has not properly covered. The fact that the Freedom Party of Ontario was involved in this matter should not be seen as a Freedom Party event but rather when you fight City Hall, people in the community need all the help they can get and any political party is better then none.
From: the official newsletter of the Freedom Party of Ontario, Winter 1988-89 WHAT IS A B.I.A.? BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT AREAS (BIAs) are the consequence of a provincial-municipal scheme aimed at compelling business people within an arbitrarily selected area to join a "business association". As "members" of this forced "association", they are also forced to pay an additional tax to the municipality. Ostensibly, this tax is used to "improve" and maintain the appearance of government-owned lands in the business area, and for collective advertising to promote the area. Of course, the BIA tax widens the municipality's tax base by adding it to already existing property and business taxes. At the heart of the issue lies the principle that is at the heart of every BIA controversy: freedom of association. Since BIA "members" cannot independently and voluntarily join or quit a BIA, they have become victims of forced association, where independent planning and action becomes replaced by forced collective planning and action (an economically, socially, and morally disastrous principle). A BIA operates very much like a labour union, being a body that requires a large consensus before it can be "de-certified". Like a union, "dues" are compulsory and the compulsion is enforced by law. And in the same way that an individual worker would have to quit his job to avoid compulsory dues, so too must the individual businessman be forced to leave his business community to avoid the extra compulsory tax. Like a union, a BIA can adopt a political platform, or support a particular political point of view--- purporting to be a view "representative" of all its "members".
[COMMENTS BY DON B. - ] |